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Woman could face charges for throwing drink at T driver - who is under investigation for punching her
By adamg on Wed, 08/26/2015 - 11:25am
Transit Police are investigating an incident earlier this month (captured on video and posted to WorldStar, of course) in which a Route 28 bus driver shut down her bus and ran out to whale on a woman who dumped an ice-laden drink on her after the driver insisted she pay her fare.
The video of the Aug. 19 incident shows the woman rushing off the bus before her young child - whom she then uses as a shield, but not well enough to keep the driver, now soaking wet, from getting at least one good punch in on the steps of a nearby house. Bystanders had to pull the driver off the woman. As the driver got back on the bus, the woman, child in arms, rushes towards the bus, yelling at the driver.
An MBTA spokesman says:
Transit Police are working to identify the woman who assaulted the bus operator. The woman was upset because the bus operator had asked her to pay the bus fare. It's unclear why the woman felt she didn't have to pay. The bus operator is suspended while a full investigation takes place. While it’s very clear that the passenger was the instigator, it’s incumbent upon the bus operator to demonstrate restraint and allow police to handle such a matter. Two wrongs do not make a right.
The driver has driven for the T for 13 years.
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Comments
"it’s incumbent upon the bus operator to demonstrate restraint"
Why aren't the buses here equipped with driver shields?
it’s incumbent upon the bus operator to demonstrate restraint"
Eh, if a passenger assaults you, you should be able to defend yourself. Perhaps getting smacked will teach the passenger not to act like an asshole in the future.
Chasing after someone and
Chasing after someone and beating them is not defense.
Running after someone...
...and then punching her is not "self defense" (even though I feel sympathy for the driver).
Ok, not "defend"
But "stand up" for yourself.
Wrong way to go about it
Escalating a situation isn't "standing up for yourself". Standing up for yourself would be to stop the bus and call the cops and video the irate passenger and the evidence that they committed assault and battery.
Being assertive is not being aggressive.
yup
agreed. Why haven't shields been installed yet.
Oh yeah, the T is broke and can't afford some luxuries like that.
I'm waiting for employees (or Carmen's Union) to sue the T for lack of protections.
You'd think after the bleach attack it would happen.. apparently not enough.
(this is also why I am not a bus driver, I'd do the same damn thing the driver did.. run after the person and punch them)
They rolled out some of the Buses with Shields...
They Installed them on some of the bus' last year, Don't know what happen with them after that
really
I will inquire which garages have these. They aren't out of Charlestown (where the buses I ride the most come from). Must be others.
I haven't see any
out of Forest Hills.
There are part of the 0700
There are part of the 0700 fleet, its unlikly you'll see them around Roxbury/JP/Dorchcher
Only one bus, 0700, had the
Only one bus, 0700, had the shield installed as a test. It ran out of both Charlestown and Cabot for drivers to try. I heard that more drivers disliked it than liked it.
There's one
There was only one bus that has a guard and it went to every garage in Boston to be tested out.
Editorial Staff
"ran out to whale on a woman"
no editors on staff today?
"Ran out to beat on a woman" instead?
Miriam-Webster says "whale" is OK, but that's an old citation, or am I missing something (which I'll grant is possible)?
Oxford concurs and notes that
Oxford concurs and notes that sometimes the spelling "wale" is used (a very old word for "welt," essentially, which became at some point a transitive verb for the causing of wales or welts). But this was a common usage when I was growing up in the eighties, however much Fowler might want to suggest it's disfavored now. Oxford seems to think "whale" is the more common spelling in this context these days.
A few years ago...
I was nursing a beer in a local watering hole a while back. A couple of larger women were near me talking with a somewhat English accent, but odd.
So I said, "Are you women from Scotland?"
One of them said, "Wales."
So I said, "Are you two whales from Scotland?"
Glad I have a decent health plan...
Glad that didn't result in
a Licensing Board hearing for the bar.
I can only think maybe they
I can only think maybe they though the proper spelling was 'wail' ?
Yeah that's it
I stumbled over that whale too but couldn't figure out how it "should" be spelled.
Lesson learned?
If you don't want to get beaten up, don't attack first
I have a solution....
And this might be a little too Will LaTullipeish, but I think anyone who gets spit on, should get 10K from that other person.
Don't have the money? Go to jail and work it off.
Edit: I posted that before I saw the video and realized it was a drink that was thrown. Still, the passenger should give 5K to the driver. With a little girl involved though, the driver should obviously not have done what she did.
rich people get away with enough crap as it is
So, rich people get to act like a jerk and pay a token fee.
Poor people act like a jerk and go to jail? Yeah, that's BS, even if it is pretty close to what already happens now.
according to
many bus drivers i know.. this attitude from patrons happens a lot. Many patrons know the drivers will not fight them and let it go. So people keep doing it.
This happens far more than it's reported.
Then props for this driver
Then props for this driver not letting her free load her way onto the bus. It probably isn't easy to confront wack jobs who think they are entitled to do whatever they want.
Person left the bus
That doesn't give the driver the right to chase them and then physically assualt them, no matter what that person may have done.
And yes, the woman was a Grade A A-hole for dumping the drink on the driver - perhaps the driver can sue Dunkin Donuts for providing the drink to the woman. (just kidding)
I know -
- two MBTA bus drivers ( one former ) who have plenty of horror stories. The former driver lasted about 5 years before throwing in the towel.
He'd been punched, kicked, yelled at, had hot coffee thrown at him, ice coffee in the face etc. Mentioned it seemed like a sport to some of the people on the route.
Human shield
I'm not buying that the fact that there was a kid involved makes it less OK for the driver to retaliate. A baby? OK. But that mother picked up the kid SPECIFICALLY so the driver wouldn't hit her. Make sure the kid is safe, but that's some bad mother who holds up her kid as protection.
or even gets into any type of
or even gets into any type of unpredictable altercation when their child is around. "Honey, I just taught you that when you're upset at someone it's ok to throw your drink all over them."
The woman who threw the drink
The woman who threw the drink at the bus driver is ratchet loser who then uses her terrified baby to shield her from the blows from the driver.
The driver should have exercised constraint and not attacked the woman with the baby but called the police instead.
The big loser here is the poor child who has an abusive angry mother and who is absolutely terrified during this assault.
Hopefully she wasn't hurt.
Just because you work with the public doesn't mean you are a punching bag.
Bus driver shields
have been used on the MTA in NYC since the 70s. I often wondered why I never saw them on MBTA buses.
Because on average we're not NYC
Driver shielding basically admits that you've given up on humanity being able to self-correct in my opinion.
Treat people like they're likely to do something like this (they aren't, this is rare) and you'll get that response from people more often than you do now. If I have to yell at/through a visible wall between the driver and myself if I only need a question answered about the route/stops/etc., then I'm less likely to think of the driver as another person and more like a prison bus warden. Fuck him if he doesn't want to "deal" with me...I just wanted a question answered.
I'm glad we don't have shields everywhere. I hate T drivers that hide behind their curtains on the Green Line.
Just because this one woman was an ignorant asshole doesn't mean we all are or that the presumption needs to be made that we *might* be so best to pre-empt A&B on the driver by forcing us all to keep our distance.
Mom of the Year
We have a new low here for parenting skills. Assaulting the bus driver in full view of the kid. Leaving the child behind on the bus in her rush to get off the bus after refusing to pay the fare. Picking the child up to use it as a human shield when she saw that she was about to be attacked for her actions. Then, after getting her comeuppance, she goes after the bus driver all while still holding on to the child as a shield. Someone please take this child away from this mother and lock the mother up for assault and endangering the welfare of a child.
I was able to guess the color of those involved
without even looking at the video. What is it with a small minority of this community feeling like they don't need to pay for things? It happened in Baltimore with the riots where a small minority took advantage of the chaos to go looting at liquor, pharmacy, shoe, and mall stores. With the MBTA its regularly a few communities where bus fare evasion and spitting etc. on bus drivers occurs. The demographics of train fare evaders seems much broader and more representative of the general ridership than bus fare scofflaws.
What is different about these bus riders?
PS kudos to the driver who wants respect for her community and won't put up with bad attitude and bad behavior.
If it makes you feel any better Markk.....
A white kid with bullets was arrested a few weeks back on a bus.
Did you pick his race?
The fake bullets?
No. Didn't try that one, but if you had asked if they were on a scooter, I would have guessed right. Self-respecting gang bangers probably wouldn't want to be caught dead riding the bus, so it would have to be white.
Funny
I'm able to guess the color of your neck every time I read anything you post.
yah,
those minorities (1%) who stash offshore accounts so they "don't need to pay for things" (taxes)....what is different about those free-loaders?
I really don't know how
I really don't know how anyone can watch this, hear the terrified child's screams, and think that any of this is OK. I hope that someone filed a 51a.
none of this is ok.
but I am guessing the screams had as much to do with her arm being yanked out of her socket, and probably not the first time. very sad.
Bus Driver assault
No one has a right to hit or become physical with anyone. However, when someone does in fact lose self-control, the person that was hit, has a right/duty to "take out" the hitter. This apply's to anyone and everyone regardless of gender, age, color or handicap.
How about a new policy?
If a freeloader gets on the bus the bus doesn't move. Maybe some kind passenger offers to pay their way, maybe the freeloader gets helped off the bus by the folks who end up paying in the end anyway.
How about if a freeloader
How about if a freeloader gets on the AC gets turned off? Then people will really scream bloody murder. I hate people who wield a smartphone but can't pay a bus fare or at least get a pass.
if she had the money for an ice-coffee.
then she prob has/had the money for a ride.
Bus passenger gives her side of the story
here (news story and 5-minute video): https://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/08/woman_t...